Earlier quoted context omitted.
The paper analyzes facts re: wages and jobs, which I think are (comparatively) easy to measure as compared with productivity, and are also an area where people have concerns about the impact of AI. Mostly people aren't worried about productivity itself, which would be weird. "Oh no, AI is making us way more productive, and now we're getting too much stuff done and the economy is growing too much." The major concern i…
Won't doing the same job in half the time lead to having to pay half the salary? Indirectly, I mean. You can now hire half the people or pay the same number of people half. Unless twice the work is suddenly required, which I doubt.
I would also be surprised if the twice the work was "suddenly" required, but would you be surprised if people buy more of something if it costs less? In the 1800s ordinary Americans typically owned only a few outfits. Coats were often passed down several generations. Today, ordinary Americans usually own dozens of outfits. Did Americans in the 1800s simply not like owning lots of clothing? Of course not. They would have liked to own more clothing, but demand was constrained by cost. As the price of clothing has gone down, demand for clothing has increased.
With software, won't it be the same? If engineers are twice as productive as before, competitive pressure will push the price of software down. Custom software for businesses (for example) is very expensive now. If it were less expensive, maybe more businesses will purchase custom software. If my Fastmail subscription becomes cheaper, maybe I will have more money to spend on other software subscriptions. In this way, across the whole economy, it is very ordinary for productivity gains to not reduce employment or wages.
Of course demand is not infinitely elastic (i.e. there is a limit on how many outfits a person will buy, no matter how cheap), but the effects of technological disruption on the economy are complex. Even if demand for one kind of labor is reduced, demand for other kinds of labor can increase. Even if we need less weavers, maybe we need more fashion designers, more cotton farmers, more truckers, more cardboard box factory workers, more logistics workers, and so on. Even if we need less programmers, maybe we need more data center administrators?
No one knows what the future economy will look like, but so far the long term trends in economic history don't link technological innovations with decreased wages or unemployment.